


Annoyance

by kuroi_atropos



Category: Deadpool - All Media Types, Marvel Avengers Movies Universe, The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-01
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:50:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,638
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/578979
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kuroi_atropos/pseuds/kuroi_atropos
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Steve Roger's first introduction to Wade Wilson was when the man used his upper back as a spring board to vault over Thor, Bruce, six doctors and five nurses to hug Hawkeye while calling out "My Precious!" He still couldn't figure out why Natasha hadn't shot the man, but figured it was the same reason why Bruce only glued a bell to him rather than Hulked out and squished him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Annoyance

Annoyance –

Steve Roger's first introduction to Agent Deadpool AKA Wade Wilson was when the man used his upper back as a spring board to vault over Thor, Bruce, six doctors and five nurses to hug Hawkeye while calling out "My Precious!"

Considering Cap's side still bled sluggishly and he was a mass of bruises, he really didn't appreciate being used as gymnastic equipment. Still Steve couldn't argue too much given the fact that Hawkeye was actually smiling a little despite the weird guy currently draped over his black and blue back—the first real smile that Steve had seen on the archer since he had met him 12 hours ago.

The other reassuring thing was that Natasha hadn't pulled her weapon. She hadn't moved at all really, as if she'd been expecting him almost. She merely stared resignedly at the man dressed in neon red pants, a Kevlar vest with two wicked looking swords crisscrossed on his back over a tank top and more guns and knives strapped to his person than both her and Clint combined. If the Black Widow (who had almost punched out the doctor that had flashed a light in the archer's unprepared eyes while he had been distracted by a still rambling Tony) accepted him, he couldn't be that bad.

Right?

Because so far Steve had yet to see anyone at S.H.I.E.L.D. that didn't deserve to be there. However he was still trying to figure out how this guy fit in aside from his sheer ability to talk a mile a minute and not be scared of man handling an injured assassin as he dodged playfully thrown tongue depressors from Natasha and swats from Nurses.

Boyish-

Thor knew some of what the Midgardians before him had been through, especially the Hawk. After all, Loki, the Asgardian's own brother, had turned the man against his allies. While it was different than the weight of ages his own years laid on his shoulders, the events that shaped his mortal friends caused what seemed a span of ages to pass through their eyes.

Which was why he was shocked at the emotional range this strange holiday, with the decorations that seemed to be a mix of strange commercialism and old yule traditions, brought out in his friends.

He really couldn't quite figure out how drinks of the warm, melted, brown candy with whipped milk or nogged eggs and candied canes seemed to make even the Black Widow smile and seem a little younger.

Still the thing that universally seemed to drop the collective consciousness of the Avengers and their friends to the mindset of toddlers was the plastic material that often protected the multitude of items in the packages that had arrived by delivery over the past few weeks.

It brought warmth to his heart to see the various competitions between the Midgardians to be the first to get their hands on the bubbled sheets and "pop them" in various fashions.

Natasha would start from one corner and, row by row, methodically pop the little bubbles one by one. Both Pepper and Captain Rogers liked to pop designs into the sheets. Bruce and Tony would pop it absentmindedly in no particular order as they solved problems on their large boards. Clint would hang it on a wall and flick pins at it. Jane would roll the sheets tightly and then twist them with the largest, most beautiful, carefree grin on her face.

Wade's approach was his favorite, however. He would just toss it on the floor and jump up and down on it with glee.

Thor decided he would try this strange, childish take first. After all, Tony wouldn't allow him to use his hammer in the tower.

Codpiece -

"It's a codpiece," Thor stated calmly.

"What?" Tony asked, slightly gob smacked.

"A codpiece, it protects th-"

Tony held up a hand, "I think that I got what it protects from the shape of it," The billionaire poked it with a straw that he grabbed from the other end of the bar. "I meant more along the lines of 'What is this fashion abomination doing on my bar?'"

Thor shrugged, "That does not belong to me, so I cannot answer my friend."

Tony poked it again and was about to call Pepper to deal with the garment when the weird swordsman who hung out with Clint and Natasha ran in and snagged the offending item off the bar. "I knew I left you somewhere! Bars here we come!" Before even Tony could say anything the man ran out again.

Tony sighed, "Jarvis, can you please arrange for the cleaners to come in first thing tomorrow, and quarantine this bar until then and re-order everything that isn't a strong enough proof to kill any possible germs."

Declare –

When Bruce blinked awake he wasn't quite sure what to make of the fact that the first thing he saw was a smirking Clint and Wade. Especially since Natasha was nowhere to be seen and one of the first things about Deadpool he had learned was that only Clint or Natasha could really get sense out of the man and Hawkeye rarely cared enough to try when he wasn't joining chaotic forces with the man.

"What's up, Doc?" They asked in unison and Bruce sighed, looking around for his glasses and carefully picking them up from the side table in his isolation room.

"Anyone care to tell me what I missed?" He asked once he could see properly.

"Well, we kicked butt," Hawkeye said leaning back on his chair.

"As always," Wade added, his smile growing wider.

"The fight was quicker than the Hulk liked though," Hawkeye added, smirking.

Bruce felt more than little scared at the smirk rather than the implication, "What was the damage?"

Wade broke down laughing and fell off his chair at that and Clint looked about one wrong word from joining him.

"Not much, I managed to distract him."

There he went straight to scared, "With what?"

A remote appeared out of nowhere in Clint's hand and he pressed a button, turning the TV screen on and starting the video feed. Bruce stared at his alter ego huffing out "1, 2, 3, 4! Hulk declare thumb war!" to Hawkeye who was using some of the robotic loading arms from the dock they had taken on the Hydra troops at and sighed.

"I am not even going to comment on what would have happened if the Other Guy lost," He said as he walked out of the room. Clint joined Wade on the floor.

Enthusiastic -

Tony knew that sometimes his arrogance about his intelligence and sarcasm put people off despite how his wealth and fame drew them in. All of the good and bad about him, though, was amplified by how excitable he could get about absolutely everything.

He couldn't do anything half way and his attention span was very "AD oh shiny" according to Darcy. Pepper, Happy and Rhodey were the only people that had really ever put up with him; Pepper with exasperation, Happy resignedly, and Rhodey with a certain prissy acceptance.

He had never really expected to find anyone that didn't just put up with him, but accept or cheer him on. Then he found all of them… All of the Avengers and their friends.

Some of them, like Natasha, were a lot like Pepper, Happy and Rhodey but most of them were way more amazing than Tony could ever deserve.

Cap only laughed, calmly handing him things that he dreamt of and telling Tony good tales of his Dad that didn't quite cancel his bad memories, but still made him think.

Thor would have such simplistic views of high science that Tony could get epiphanies from his child hood stories.

Bruce was his science bro, enough said really.

But Clint and Deadpool, well, he had never had more enthusiastic beta testers of his wildest inventions then those two.

They had even tried out the thing that Pepper stated was never to be mentioned again.

Fondle –

"There is no way that record should have counted!" Cap said as he put enough rush into his step to beat Tony into the living area even though he was walking backwards.

"Says the man on the ultimate steroids!" The genius returned as he finally put away the phone that he had been playing with the majority of the time they had been watching another round of baseball reels in his private theatre.

"For the last time I am not on Steroids!" Steve said as he finally turned around to make sure he didn't trip over anything only to pause at the sight of Wilson sitting cross legged on the table, a card board box with Japanese lettering on it and tons of packing material strewn around him. Now, Wade sitting on furniture he wasn't supposed to was actually rather normal, as was his attachment to his weapons.

Still the sight of him nuzzling his cheek on the flat of a blade while rubbing the handle of said blade and giggling sent shivers of terror down his spine. He shared a frankly horrified glance with Tony before the assassin spotted them and pointed up towards the ceiling looking petulant.

"At least I'm better than him with that new re-curve!"

Steve followed his finger and found Hawkeye surprisingly still asleep in a net that had been strung up in a corner near a vent, his arms wrapped tight around the mentioned bow.

"Damn it, Clint!" Tony shouted. The archer startled awake and promptly fell out of his nest, catching one of the ropes with a free hand to hang there blinking owlishly before Steve even had a chance to panic.

"What have I told you about putting holes in the walls?" The inventor said.

Clint glared at Tony for a second before huffing and pulling himself back into the nest. "That I had to clear it with Pepper, and she was fine with it. I had her sign something just in case. It's in your work email."

Tony blinked then grabbed his phone back out of his pocket while Wade just laughed.

Steve rolled his eyes and headed for the coffee machine.

God –

Wade Wilson couldn't be sure if he was either smart enough or insane enough (truthfully probably a little of both) to know that ultimately he and everyone else around him existed for someone's entertainment. There was simply no other way to explain the drama or the weirdness that they put up with on a regular basis.

Seriously, Hellicarriers and anger management issues that wrecked cities and sleeping in ice for 70 years and mythic gods and no one doing the simple things that were common sense enough that you would teach them to a 3 year old?

Basically knowing that he was some pawn poked and prodded for others amusement meant that even most of the bad stuff in life he couldn't take too seriously. He ran his mouth and poked and prodded back at the world, and had found the niche that let him feel he had some type of control even as he laughed at the melodrama and ridiculousness of the world around him.

Still there were some things that even he felt were sacred. Clint's trust and Natasha's strength. Phil's care.

Then there was the Captain. As in Captain America. One of the things about this world that made absolutely no sense, but that Deadpool could respect for one main reason: His faith in God.

There was something about it that transcended the craziness that surrounded them to the point that Wade would shut up whenever the Captain would mention going to church or praying for someone's happiness. The man was on a team with a Nordic Deity come to life, an atheist that needled him for his beliefs, a man that hated the world and two assassins that despite their coping methods many called soulless and he still believed that the world was inherently good, and that a being out their cared enough about people to give them the choice to do the right thing.

It was strangely humbling – still that didn't stop him from dropping buckets of swirled red, white and blue paint on the man whenever he left a church (he'd only gotten the priest once.)

Helper –

"So let me get this plan straight," Bruce said as he eyed the three assassins dressed to kill, unfortunately in this case literally. Natasha was hiding a least four knives, a small gun and some razor wire somewhere in her slinky purple dress and Wade and Clint obviously had more since they wore tuxes.

"You're going to infiltrate a party to meet with a covert operative for some organization that I don't have the clearance to know about, and your plan involves a duck, three purple-dyed penguins, a marching band and at least four 'grand' entrances along with pitch perfect timing and you need my help to pull it off?"

"Right on the money, Doc!" Wade sing-songed as he jittered his legs a little until Natasha smacked him lightly.

"Yeah, the long story short is no matter how strange they sound, Wade's plans normally work," Clint said in a tone that would have made the Sahara look wet.

"Hey! They always work!"

"Budapest," Natasha and Clint said together making Wade scowl.

"Okay, one time! How was I supposed to know that those elephants would escape into the AIM base?!"

"What about the robot Monkeys?" Clint deadpanned.

"They weren't supposed to be active yet!"

Bruce really didn't want to know and he was getting less and less confident by the second…. "Back on topic. My part in this plan?"

"Well, I'm awesome, see? And with my cover it makes sense to have a gopher."

"A rodent?"

"No, a "go for" - a helper, like to fetch me drinks and stuff."

Brice scowled and left the room. "Find someone else."

He heard Clint mutter behind him, "Told you we should have snagged one of the newbie agents that didn't pay attention to the Welcome Briefing."

Ignorance –

Steve looked at the entirety of his team (plus Jane, Darcy, Pepper and was that Coulson?) sitting on the floor of the living area with a movie playing in the back ground that was pulling some of the corniest lines he had ever heard. Junk food and pillows lay strewn about the room and strange colored gunk crusted on their faces (sticking in Tony's, Thor's and Wade's beards rather strangely).

"Steve!" Wade said with a grin, ignoring the smirk from a pink-covered Tony next to him. "Come join us. These face masks feel amazing."

Steve blinked.

He took one more look around the room and decided ignorance was bliss as he turned on his heel and ran.

Joust -

Steve blinked at the long wooden pointed thing that Wade had presented to him. It was painted in a mix of colors that made the artist in him cringe but that matched the truly garish decorations of the Renascence Fair that was the backdrop of their latest world saving mission.

"What is this, Deadpool?"

"It's a lance."

"What?"

"Your horse is over there," Wade swung the lance wide to point in the horse's direction and only the quick reflexes of the SHEILD agent that Cap had been talking to saved the woman from a concussion.

"What?! I don't even know how to ride a horse!"

Wade laughed and actually tossed the lance at Cap (who barely managed to catch it) before bolting away towards another horse and lance as he called over his shoulder, "You grip with your knees!"

Cap looked between the jousting stick, Deadpool's retreating back and the rest of his (rather amused) teammates.

Tony made a shooing motion with his hands while Clint smiled slyly and Thor called for refreshments so he could truly enjoy the spectacle.

Cap sighed and went towards the horse, picking up his shield on the way. If he was going into this blind, he was going to have the best protection he could get.

He scowled as he heard Natasha mutter behind him "It's funny that he never thinks to say no."

Keeper –

Fury sat at his desk and stared at his tablet looking at the flyer that had just reached his inbox. He didn't even tag his earpiece. "HILL!"

The woman appeared in his doorway. "Sir?"

"What is this?"

Hill didn't even miss a beat. "It's a flyer for try-outs, sir."

"That I understood, Agent Hill. What I want to know is why it is advertising try-outs for a damned SHIELD Quidditch team when we don't even have a baseball team."

"Because Agent Deadpool showed all the Harry Potter movies to Captain America, sir, and then when Captain Rogers decided Quidditch was 'nifty,' Agent Deadpool convinced him to pout at Stark to build them flying broomsticks." Hill looked slightly put out by that.

Fury blinked. "That would explain medical reports, Agent Hill, not flyers that have us with the color coordination of an "evil" house for some type of quasi league fake sport."

"Well, Sir, Stark decided to build broomsticks for all of the Avengers, then Cap called Keeper where Ms. Potts could hear, so she insisted on an official test flight, which brought in Col. Rhodes resulting in the Air Force getting a team together which Stark joked were a bunch of duffers so Col. Rhodes picked Hufflepuff colors for their team so they could 'show Stark how to really fly' and it kind of spiraled from there with the Avengers being Gryffindor and us being Slytherin."

Fury decided not to touch that yet. "Please tell me all the proper forms have been filled out, the last thing I need is Langley or someone else on the horn talking about UFOs."

"The CIA has team try-outs next week, the FBI's is Friday and Army's is Saturday. It's still up for debate on if the Marines and Navy should get one team or two but most likely it'll be two. Their color schemes have yet to be decided since we're short on houses, sir. Next options are the professional teams, but since so many of them are tied to countries it's causing some consternation."

"'We,' Agent Hill?"

"I volunteered you for team Captain. With Hawkeye and Widow on the Avengers team, I've called Seeker."

Fury raised an eyebrow.

"I like Harry Potter, Sir."

Fury rubbed his eyes and reached for the bottle of aspirin on his desk.

Longer –

Ever since he had become the Hulk, time had stopped being something that Bruce was able to really keep track of. He had started pacing his existence in heartbeats—heartbeats that would not speed up no matter how hard he tried.

The drug combination was too good.

He was sitting in the back of a jet, only there as medical support, next to a jittery Wade and the rest of the in route Shield cavalry as they listened over a com piece as Captain America and Hawkeye fought towards a captured Tony and Natasha.

They were too far out.

Even if they weren't, he couldn't help.

He couldn't fight without the other guy.

He wasn't Tony, or any of the others. He didn't have the dexterity to control a super suit, couldn't imagine risking other drugs, and had aged far enough past his prime that truly mastering any form of armed combat was out of his reach. And he refused to become a lab experiment again, because that had worked out so well last time.

So all he could do was sit and monitor the frequencies from their chips, listening as Tony mouthed off about this being nothing compared to a cave, and the blips of Natasha's heartbeats now sounding even more sluggish than Bruce's chemically slowed ones.

He had to hear Cap yell in pain before assuring everyone he was fine over and over again while Clint cursed and Wade make less and less noise.

The forced length of time between his own heartbeats wasn't worth not having the ace in their sleeve.

Money –

Natasha felt disappointed in herself at how long it took her to notice what Tony was doing. Then again, aside from random acts of bravery in the field (which brought out a slightly different personality in almost everyone) she had mainly profiled him when he was dying.

Though it was no excuse, she thought it was because all of the acts seemed so small and understated in comparison to Tony's normal actions.

All of their rooms were carefully designed with them in mind: Hers airy with wrought-iron railings, Clint's exposed beams and a balcony with doubled walls, Cap's bright with a separate studio, Thor's high ceilinged with fully retractable windows, Bruce's on the same floor as the labs with computer screens and uplinks to every system imaginable.

Clint and Natasha would often come back from a bad mission to find Tony scowling at a tablet in his hands with the menu screen for one of their favorite movies queued up.

He shared a nod with General Ross at the Government Christmas party that was the first time Betty had been allowed near Bruce in years.

The Tower's roof, practice areas and common living areas mysteriously ended up even more EMP Shielded then Stark normally kept his equipment and wired for electricity re-direction which meant that Thor could use the magic that normally messed with Technology.

Tony could somehow always tell when Cap was having a harder time than normal with the future or a flashback of the war and would distract Wade from bugging him with something shiny.

Funny how the price tag on everything was next to nothing for Tony, she thought with a smile as she dug her boot into Hammer's hand, breaking another three bones while Deadpool finished off the last of the robots that had crashed their surprise birthday party for Iron Man.

Noisy -

Bruce had both attended and taught at his fair share of Colleges and Universities. Even though all had been prestigious, they were still ultimately schools mostly crammed with 19-23 year olds. As such they could get really, really loud.

He had heard several other things get almost as loud, including a Mardi Gras and a Mexican Day of the Dead, but all of that paled in comparison to the sound blaring into his labs from the vents and the hallway. Bruce was half scared to find out what the off key caterwauling and horribly screechy guitar riffs were, but eventually his curiosity won out. He carefully made his way through the hallways, relying on Jarvis to point him in the right direction (while keeping his hands firmly over his ears; Jarvis was using lights to direct).

He eventually found himself in one of the media rooms and couldn't help but sigh at the scene. Clint was tied to a chair, practically mummified with Duct Tape, chains and rope. That didn't stop him from trying to escape, but Wade had apparently really wanted to make sure that he had a captive audience for his Karaoke.

Opulence -

Natasha had to bite back a laugh as she ran a hand teasingly across Clint's shoulder only to smirk coyly at the target behind his back. The man's mansion was overly decadent to the point of tackiness, which went along with his taste for dallying in illegal slave trades.

He was also falling for Clint and Natasha's cover of a rich couple looking to buy something to spice up their love life hook line and sinker, and had tried to subtly offer himself as an option more than a few times, to their amusement.

Still they took full advantage of the man courting them, carefully ferreting out all of the details that they needed to bring him down while enjoying the irony of using the man's own resources—some that even SHEILD hadn't known about—to help bring him down.

Wade felt no shame in subtly hinting at physical things they could use to mask their information gathering from his position as hired help. As a result, after this mission ended, they would be the recipient of a new Lamborghini and more than a few other toys that would undoubtedly end up in pieces.

Prison –

Pepper, Jane and Hill stared at the Officer that was holding out a clipboard to them. He sported a bored, somewhat annoyed expression as he eyed them, like it actually wasn't a big deal that they had all been called in at 3 in morning.

Pepper, out of habit more than anything else, took the clip board and wanted to sigh at the possibility of yet another something she didn't want to know about her boyfriend. Hence why she was surprised when the first picture wasn't of Tony Stark, but of a nude Steve with only his shield saving the camera wielder from getting an eyeful as he chased after Natasha. The femme fatale was in a tiny black bikini aiming a water gun at someone out of the picture.

"Oh my…" Pepper glanced up at Hill's sigh and nodded in commiseration as she flipped the page.

She could practically feel the heat radiating from Jane at the next picture which featured her boyfriend in a loin cloth and a pitcher of beer in each hand, standing on top of a statue of horse and…well, it looked like he was singing.

She flipped the page again and was slightly shocked to see a mostly clothed Tony doing what was far from the worst thing she had seen, launching a glass into the air while Clint and Wade seemed to be fighting over who got to throw what looked like one of Natasha's stun disks at it, and the skimpily clad spy was in the background aiming water pistol at them. Well, that semi-explained the first picture.

"Where is Doctor Banner?" Hill asked, when Pepper's flick of the last photo revealed an incident report rather than another photo.

The officer looked a little sheepish as he shrugged, "If you mean the nice guy that was with this lot, he gave us your phone numbers and wandered off laughing about getting to pick the channel for the next week with the blackmail material. Since everyone said he didn't do anything and was actually trying to occasionally reign in the rest of them, we decided to let him go."

Pepper wasn't sure if she appreciated what Bruce did or if she wanted to throw him in a holding cell with the rest of them when they woke up hung over.

Quietly –

Bruce was really glad that he had the patience to deal with shocks, surprises and pointy objects without the Other Guy demanding to make an appearance. After all, as bad as Tony was on his own, they were also essentially roommates with two master assassins and the frequent host to the strange man that they'd brought with them.

All three of the SHIELD agents moved so silently that Tony had more than once tried to put a bell on them with varying degrees of success and bloodshed. They also had the tendency to leave weapons stashed in every nook and cranny they could get to, and Bruce had often found himself stitching up someone that had been less than careful.

Clint and Natasha had mostly adapted though, tried to give him warning when they entered a room, kept only a few knives in his lab, thankfully away from his main workspaces and favorite equipment. Deadpool on the other hand seemed to be more like Tony in the fact he wanted to see Bruce jump, and took great pleasure in surprising him.

Bruce took just as much pleasure in the fact that even though it took him three weeks and more pleading with Jarvis than he wanted to admit, he actually succeeded in putting a bell on the sword-wielding nut job…permanently attached to his forehead with an original compound he'd created just for that purpose.

He took even more pleasure when said nut job had to beg to get it off.

Ronald –

Steve stared at the three assassins. "Jarvis, am I seeing things or running a fever or something?"

"You are most definitely "seeing" things, Captain Rogers. Although in the spirit of what you asked, no, you are not hallucinating. Agents Deadpool, Hawkeye and Black Widow are in front of you dressed in costumes depicting respectively: Ronald McDonald, the Hamburgler, and Birdie the Early Bird."

Natasha glared and Clint sighed as Wade laughingly tossed an arm around his shoulders. Cap made sure to angle his torso to avoid getting any of the shorter man's face paint on his clothes. "We're going to the Ronald McDonald House for a charity thing, wanna come?"

"The what house?"

"Bunch of sick kids – I am sure they would love to see Captain America!"

"But I-"

Natasha ripped Wade away from him and grabbed the collar of his shirt. "If I have to do this you are."

Cap gulped. "Give me five minutes to get ready." He ran towards his uniform and shield, as Clint laughed and Wade started a count down.

Sensibility -

Living with Tony made it hard sometimes to maintain reasonable views on what was and was not truly necessary to live. Missions helped remind Clint of how little he really needed, but even still, as the Tower and Team started to feel more and more like home, days in his sniper's perches began to seem more like fleeting moments of lack.

He would carefully tip toe around the fact that their sheets were changed daily, that there was a constant housekeeping presence and that more gear than he could ever use would constantly be delivered to his suite. His mission bag took up a corner of the closet. The rest of the not inconsiderable storage space was getting precariously full…

And the closet space didn't even compare to the size of his room, which could fit a good ten of the tents that he, Barney and three other boys would have had to share back then. More than once he'd taken to sleeping in the exposed rafters at the top of the room (and really, what kind of a bedroom had rafters?!) that Tony had designed just for him.

Wade would laugh off the way that all the new movies and games magically appeared on the shelves, while Clint wondered how many hours he would have had to spend scraping out animals' cages just to afford one of them.

That didn't even touch on the part of him that remembered starving on the streets before he and Barney were taken in by the circus, or when Taskmaster and Trickshot would withhold food as punishment; that part couldn't help but want to take all the canned goods and other food stuffs in the fully stocked Kitchens and pantries (yes, there were multiple in the Avenger's portion of the Tower) to a local shelter, especially with how infrequently they cooked. He cringed when he wondered how much of it expired on a regular basis.

Sometimes he wondered if his new situation would make him weak. He could practically feel it constantly chiseling away at the long, hard years of built strength. Was finding a family worth giving up so many parts of himself?

Tenant –

Pepper couldn't help but bury her face in her hand. She knew letting the Avengers go to Comic Con was a bad idea. Clint, Natasha and Wade had decided to go as ninjas with weird purple "tattoos" on their left arms and porcelain animal masks that covered their faces. Tony had complained about them not actually wearing costumes before they pointed out his and Caps. The multi-billionaire merely wore his light weight, suitcase armor, and Cap dressed up in his original uniform. Thor on the other hand wore the dark mask and cape of Darth Vader (Tony said he had the height for it, which was the only reason he'd been able to dodge going as Pikachu).

The Asgardian was also getting into constant arguments on true fantasy vs midgardian's miss-remembered reality with Tony. Many of the stories that other costumes came from were based on tales that he considered history as apparently several other pantheons were real too (according to Thor, Hercules was a regular drinking buddy). It seemed that Thor was having trouble parsing out all the fantasy details from what he considered history even after all of the movie marathons that Tony had put him and Cap through in preparation for this. Behind them, Pepper could hear Jane grumbling, asking how anyone could walk in that giant, red dress, and that if one more person told her she looked like the actress she was imitating, she would borrow her boyfriend's lightsaber.

Wade, as always, made the situation worse. His love of teasing the tall warrior was being taken to new heights as Tony's explanations could rarely be called understandable and Clint was too busy taking tons of photographs to act as mediator like normal. All in all, the end result was that Thor was now clasping an actor around the shoulder demanding more tales of his brave deeds and stating how the man should come as a follow protector of Earth to Asgard to feast at his Father's table while imploring the poor man to share secrets of his "magical box that was bigger on the inside" with his Mother.

The gorgeous man with the great hair and English accent (he'd switched from Scottish) was playing along fabulously, much to the squeals of the fan girls around them.

Pepper dug her phone out of her purse to take Wade's favorite burritos off of the shopping list for the next two weeks in punishment and hoped she could control the fallout from this. She was going to kill Tony when they got back.

(Okay that was totally Tennant rather than Tenant, but I couldn't help myself!)

Unscrupulous -

When the rumors started circulating that Tony Stark had gone back into dealing with weapons again (under the table, of course) basically everyone ignored it. That didn't stop Tony from furiously trying to figure out who was spreading the false information. They'd covered their tracks well though, which was why he was marginally blindsided in yet another Senate Committee hearing when two of his former board members presented some type of evidence against him.

Luckily he was able to poke enough holes in their "proof" and had Fury of all people stand up as a character witness so he was allowed to leave, but he could feel the eyes and the doubt against him as every bad thing he had ever done was whispered behind his back.

He tried to do what he always did when something went wrong to the point of actually getting at him and bury himself in his shop, but Pepper and his team kept getting in his way.

First Pepper insisted on dragging him out to a press conference. Then, on the the way back, Thor grabbed him so they could discuss "battle strategies" against the foul naves over drinks.

After he got back and tried to stumble down the stairs, Bruce insisted on pulling him into a lab to cover something with radio frequencies and reversing the polarities, but Tony had been pretty drunk so wasn't sure.

He'd managed to fight his way to the kitchen the next morning after waking up on the cot Bruce normally used only to find Natasha in business best (a suit that reminded him of when she had acted as his aide) with a folder on one of his board members before her and a coffee in her hands.

He decided not to comment and left the room to get coffee in his shop only to run into a squabbling Clint and Wade. Wade was actually in a suit as well, and he was trying to strap a wrist guard onto the archer with one hand while the other waved some of the paint arrows Tony had made for the last paint ball war through the air. Tony just picked another hallway when he heard Deadpool rant about angles to hit cars while Clint just mentioned something about junior agents.

By the time he actually got to his shop, crashed in the back seat of his favorite hot rod with a cup of coffee and the schematics to another suit in front of him, he wasn't really anticipating anymore interruptions in his normally scheduled brooding. So when Jarvis told him that one of his tracker programs picked up something he needed to see, Tony was a little pissy.

He pulled open a window and blinked to see Steve entering a posh room that contained the two jerks that had tried to call him out on the Senate floor. He blinked as the tall blonde carefully laid a folder down in front of them and flicked it open. Tony wished there was sound to go along with the mens' rapidly paling faces, but wasn't quite that lucky. Still Tony had to hand it to Cap, the old fogies were quaking by the time he finished speaking.

They tried to recover, but Cap just smiled his best aw-shucks smile and walked out, leaving the folder and its papers on the desk (Tony had tried to zoom in, but the resolution on the security camera wasn't good enough.)

He couldn't say that he was surprised when both men recanted their statements the next day.

Visions –

As he paced, Hawkeye glared at the guards that were assigned to keep him in the tiny, little room that Fury had ordered him into until "whatever that wacked out-psycho dead witch did wears off or he goes crazy and knocks himself out."

It wasn't his fault that creepy ghost chick kissed him and suddenly he could see visions of the future. It wasn't like he needed them anyway. He could tell just by looking at them that the guards were just good enough that he wouldn't be able to get away from them without hurting them which meant he didn't get to break out just yet.

He didn't need the visions to tell him that if he got out, he and Wade would somehow end up chased out of more casinos then he could count and that Tony would find some way to take advantage – a dizzying round of images crashed over him and by the time he was done reeling, Hawkeye sat down and decided that he was quite happy where he was and calmly asked the security cameras for a magazine to be brought by anyone but Stark and to check the expiration dates on the Readi-Whip in the commissary, please.

Welcome -

Tony's welcome of the other Avengers to their tower (well, okay his, but he was being magnanimous enough to put the team name on the building) was different for each one, as it really should be.

Bruce he just dragged in beside him and set up in the labs. He was by far the easiest.

Cap ended up wandering in a few weeks into the reconstruction, and Tony made sure that he had something to do other than hole himself in the gym—that had been one of the first things he had had finished. It had taken some finagling, but he was able to set up (with some judicious help from Pepper and the design team) a few areas that Cap could 'accidentally stumble across' and help with. It surprised Tony that several walls also ended up with some truly fantastic pieces of original art.

Thor just randomly thumped down on the roof one day with a few bags thrown over his shoulder and Tony was forced to break out the alcohol and the spare bedrooms for the friends that accompanied him. Feeding the lot of them actually made him wince—several times—but when the three warriors and lady left assured of the hospitality their prince would receive, well, Tony just had to pat himself on the back.

Natasha came next, trailing after Pepper with the woman's latest assistant on their heels almost in tears (apparently the red-head wasn't happy with how the assistant had done her job). Tony sighed and quietly paid for therapists to trail the spy, who was insistent on paying her own way by helping out as she wasn't as concerned about her cover any longer. He was sure she noticed the additional expenditures he authorized, but was polite and professional enough to not mention it, even if she did send a particularly scathing scowl in his direction every now and then.

Clint was the hardest. Tony had only met the man during the alien invasion and its aftermath, but hadn't seen him since. His room had been plainer then the others because Tony didn't have much of an inkling of his personality, and aside from adding a few archery targets on the roof, he didn't have any idea of what he could do to make the man feel comfortable when (if) he finally showed up. Unsurprisingly, Natasha ended up finally having to drag him in.

In the end, Tony decided to redesign the vent system (and all of them putting up with the construction workers for that wasn't exactly a picnic) for the archer to crawl through and hide in when he needed it. Oh, he also ended up having to convert a room for his psychotic tag-along with the swords.

Giving Wilson access to their precious Tower was by far the hardest thing he had ever done.

Xavier –

"Well, you're still a cute guinea pig."

"Stop ruining this, Eric."

"I'm not ruining anything, just pointing out that you seem to end up hooked up to machines far more often then I found healthy for me."

"Uh, sorry to interrupt but Charles, I need you to focus for me." Bruce wasn't sure to shrink back or laugh at the twin, raised eyebrows he got from the telepath and the metal bender that had literally dropped through a portal created by an evil genius in one of their fights.

The two of them were highly entertaining and Lensherr could even keep up with Tony when it came to snark (the last round had ended in Pepper using a fire extinguisher she'd nabbed from Dummy) and Charles got along fabulously with Steve. The two of them often stayed up into the night talking about modulated risks and non-violent response options as well as trading stories of various ways they had taken down bullies (while Steve's stories of back alley fist-a-cuffs were entertaining, Charles took the cake by telling about one who ended up thinking they were a 12 year old girl for a week.)

Still the two needed to get home, as they had explained that they were in the midst of what the Avengers and SHIELD realized was the Cuban missile crisis compounded by people with superpowers and attitudes that beat Erik's distrustful cynicism rather than matched Charles serenely diplomatic viewpoint.

This lead to them working on reverse engineering the portal device created by the mad scientist (his and Tony's grumbling about the structure of the thing had Wade laughing about the Doctor making up physics even more than usual for their world which made the "science brothers" blink before promptly going back to ignoring him.)

They had figured out that somehow the portal had reached through dimensions, similar to how the Tesseract Portal had reached through space, and basically through a stroke of bad luck latched onto Charles's telepathy at the same moment he was talking to Erik and viola. Their days were made more interesting by a metal bender who reluctantly agreed to help Tony with fabrication and a telepath who was enjoying being able to drink again as he didn't have any kids to set an example for, and an Asgardian, super soldier, and billionaire willing to have drinking contests with him.

Bruce sighed as he tried to activate the test program for getting them home again only to have Charles face suddenly scrunch up and have him glare at the wall and yell "seriously Wade that was disgusting!"

The mercenary laughed manically before calling out, "Oh come on! You still haven't figured out why Mag's and Iron brains fight that much?"

Bruce sighed as his experiment was ruined by Charles running out of the room to try and prevent Lensherr from getting into a death match with Deadpool again.

Yelp -

Tony and Steve were yet again discussing the merits of various aspects of baseball while Bruce trailed behind them amusedly. They entered the office off the main living area and blinked at finding Wade on the computer. Normally the man avoided them.

"What are you doing?" Tony asked, curious.

"I'm on Yelp!" Wade yelped. "I had to add a rec for that noodle place we went to after the last mission."

Cap was about to ask what "Yelp" was, when Tony shot out a sarcastic "Seriously?" and Bruce muttered about finding out Wade's screen name so that he could avoid the man's recs (the restaurant had given even Thor…. gastrointestinal issues, to put it mildly.)

Steve closed his mouth and silently agreed with Bruce and decided he would ask Clint what Yelp was, just to be safe.

Zipper –

Tony decided to blame everything on the booze even though that excuse rarely worked as well as it should (people had the tendency to counter it with things like self-control and designated drivers or flyers and stuff like that.) Still he needed something to blame for the fact that he was stupid enough to challenge three drunken assassins to demonstrate creative ways to use a zipper in a homicide on his person.

**Author's Note:**

> Yeah, no comment. This was written among other things as a break from my NaNoWriMo piece. Thanks as always to Obi.


End file.
